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February 28, 2005

Nuns

Sitting by the window of her convent, Sister Barbara opened a letter from home one evening. Inside the letter was a $100 bill her parents had sent. Sister Barbara smiled at the gesture. As she read the letter by the window, she noticed a shabbily dressed stranger leaning against the lamp post below.

Quickly, she wrote, "Don't despair. Sister Barbara," on a piece of paper, wrapped the $100 bill in it, got the man's attention and tossed it out the window to him. The stranger picked it up, and with a puzzled expression and a tip of his hat, went off down the street.

The next day, Sister Barbara was told that a man was at the door, insisting on seeing her. She went down, and found the stranger waiting. Without a word, he handed her a huge wad of $100 bills. "What's this?" she asked. "That's the $8,000 you have coming Sister," he replied. "Don't Despair paid 80-to-1!!"

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (1)

February 27, 2005

Diseases

Medical researchers have discovered a new disease that has no symptoms. It's impossible to detect and there is no known cure.

Fortunately, no cases have been reported thus far.

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

February 26, 2005

Taco vs Woman

Nine reasons a taco is better than a woman:

1: Tacos don't put frilly covers on the toilet seat so the lid won't stay up.

2: Tacos don't use your razor on their legs.

3: Tacos don't say "That's okay, it doesn't have to be good for me."

4: Tacos don't get upset if you eat another taco, "Just for fun."

5: Tacos will never contest a divorce, demand a property settlement or seek custody of anything.

6: Tacos won't ask you about your last lover, or speculate about your next one.

7: A taco will never make a scene because there are other tacos in the refrigerator.

8: It's easy to drop a taco.

9: Tacos don't want to sleep on your chest.

So, given all that,what the heck is a taco and where can I get one :-)

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

February 25, 2005

Golfers

A fellow is getting ready to tee-off on the first hole when a second fellow approaches and asks if he can join him. The first says that he usually plays alone but agrees to let the second guy join him.

Both are even after the first couple of holes. The second guy says, "Say, we're about evenly matched, how about we play for five bucks a hole?"

The first fellow says that he usually plays alone and doesn't like to bet but agrees to the terms just to be friendly. Well, the second guy wins the rest of the holes and as they're walking off of the eighteenth hole, and he is counting his $80, he confesses that he's the pro at a neighboring course and likes to pick on suckers.

The first fellow reveals that he's the Parish Priest at the local Catholic Church to which the second fellow gets all flustered and apologetic and offers to give the Priest back his money. The Priest says, "No, no. You won fair and square and I was foolish to bet with you. You keep your winnings."

The pro says, "Well, is there anything I can do to make it up to you?"

The Priest says, "Well, you could come to Mass on Sunday and make a donation. And if you bring your mother and father by after Mass, I'll marry them for you."

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

SunOS Bootblocks

This week we have a user question about installing SunOS 4.1.4 on a SparcStation 20 (the SS20 was discontinued in June 1997, SunOS 4.1.4 was replaced around 1991).

The question: How do I install a bootblock on a SunOS 4.1.x?

The answer: You need to look at the installboot command. The format will be something like: installboot -v /boot bootsd /dev/rsd0a

More information:

The installboot command is available under both SunOS and Solaris. One user has even reported being able to create a bootblock on a SunOS disk from a Solaris installation.

More information on Solaris/SunOS versions can be found in the Solaris 2 FAQ and the Sun Computer Administration FAQ describes which models of system can run which OS. Another similar matrix can be found at Freelab.net.

Posted by Ozguru at 06:00 AM

February 24, 2005

Changing a lightbulb

Q: How many members of the U.S.S. Enterprise does it take to change a light bulb?

A: Seven.

Scotty has to report to Captain Kirk that the light bulb in the Engineering Section is getting dim, at which point Kirk will send Bones to pronounce the bulb dead (although he'll immediately claim that he's a doctor, not an electrician). Scotty, after checking around, realizes that they have no more new light bulbs, and complains that he "canna" see in the dark. Kirk will make an emergency stop at the next uncharted planet, Alpha Regula IV, to procure a light bulb from the natives, who, are friendly, but seem to be hiding something. Kirk, Spock, Bones, Yeoman Rand and two red shirt security officers beam down to the planet, where the two security officers are promptly killed by the natives, and the rest of the landing party is captured.

As something begins to develop between the Captain and Yeoman Rand, Scotty, back in orbit, is attacked by a Klingon destroyer and must warp out of orbit. Although badly outgunned, he cripples the Klingon and races back to the planet in order to rescue Kirk et. al. who have just saved the natives' from an awful fate and, as a reward, been given all lightbulbs they can carry. The new bulb is then inserted and the Enterprise continues on its five year mission.

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (2)

February 23, 2005

Tardiness

A young preacher was asked by the local funeral director to hold a grave-side burial service at a small local cemetery for someone with no family or friends. The preacher started early but quickly got himself lost, making several wrong turns. Eventually, a half-hour late, he saw a backhoe and its crew, but the hearse was nowhere in sight, and the workmen were eating lunch.

The diligent young pastor went to the open grave and found the vault lid already in place.

Taking out his book, he read the service. Feeling guilty because of his tardiness, he preached an impassioned and lengthy service, sending the deceased to the great beyond in style.

As he was returning to his car, he overheard one of the workmen say: "I've been putting in septic tanks for twenty years and I ain't never seen anything like that."

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (1)

February 22, 2005

Ex-Husbands

This married couple was sitting in a fine restaurant when the wife looks over at a nearby table and sees a man in a drunken stupor.

The husband asks "I notice you've been watching that man for some time now. Do you know him?"

"Yes" she replies, "He's my ex-husband, and has been drinking like that since I left him seven years ago."

"That's remarkable" the husband replies, "I wouldn't think anybody could celebrate that long."

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

February 21, 2005

Xboxes recalled

In what has to be one of the funniest news-stories of the month, Microslosh is admitting to a problem with the Xbox:

Microsoft has warned consumers that more than 14 million Xbox games consoles could be a fire hazard after reports of gamers burning their hands and damaging lounge room carpets.

The real punchline comes towards the end of the article...

Microsoft advised gamers that ... they should turn off their console ...

In updated news, Microslosh has announced the results of a study that show PC's which are switched off do not attract new virii. As a result, they have suggested that leaving your PC switched off from the day you buy it until it is obsolete will guarantee your safety.

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (1)

February 20, 2005

Optimisim Unbounded

Dublin Want Ads...How Can you not love the Irish

Heavy drinker, 35, Cork area. Seeks gorgeous sex addict interested in a man who loves his pints, cigarettes, Glasgow Celtic Football Club and starting fights on Patrick Street at three o'clock in the morning.

Bitter, disillusioned Dublin man, lately rejected by longtime fiancee, seeks decent, honest, reliable woman, if such a thing still exists in this cruel world of hatchet-faced bitches.

Ginger haired Galway man, a troublemaker, gets slit-eyed and shirty after a few scoops, seeks attractive, wealthy lady for bail purposes, maybe more.

Bad tempered, foul-mouthed old bastard, living in a damp cottage in the arse end of Roscommon, seeks attractive 21 year old blonde lady, with a lovely chest.

Limerick man, 27, medium build, brown hair, blue eyes, seeks alibi for the night of February 27 between 8 PM and 11:30 PM.

Optimistic Mayo man, 35, seeks a blonde 20 year old double-jointed supermodel, who owns her own brewery, and has an open-minded twin sister.

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

February 19, 2005

Yust Yoking

One day the president of the company came upon a young man who was expertly counting out a large wad of the firms cash. The boss asked, " Where did you get your financial training, young man?"

"Yale," the young man answered proudly.

Ah, a fellow Ivy Leaguer! What is your name?"

"Yack Yackson."

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (1)

Netra SAN Cards

Earlier in the week I was asked one of those "off-the-cuff" questions which then result in lots of effort to find what should really be a simple question. A client has some Netra T1 105 machines which are a couple of years old. They have a 32 bit PCI slot suitable for a 2/3 length PCI card. They also have 2Gb fibre connected SAN infrastructure... The quick question is whether there is a Sun 2Gb card that will work in the Netra.

Well the immediate response is to go look this up in SunSolve and the answer is very clearly: NO. The documentation for the server clearly states that only 1Gb cards are certified. The doco for the cards (I selected the Qlogic X6767A / X6768A for testing) also indicated that this particular server was *not* supported.

Hmmm. Looks like a challenge to me. I just happened to have an X6768A lying around and I also dug up a Netra T1 105. Afterall, the doco for the card suggests that it is a 32/64 card which should work in a 32 bit slot (although you get part of the connector edge of the card hanging in space). Open up the box and whoops... the problem is that the card is a 2/3 length card... boy is that tight space to put anything in...

After some manoeuvring (and pulling half the contents of the server out onto the desk) I got the card in. A bit more experimentation and I was able to work out that all you need to remove is the plastic processor shield and the PCI support bar. After you fit the card, these can be reinstalled. Now let's fire the system up... Nada. Zip. Nothing...

Oh yeah, it helps if you plug the SAN into the power point before you try connecting to it. Still nothing. Ahhhh, what about drivers? Let's try the SUNWsan software with the two cfpl packages... Bingo.

After all that effort (about 4 hours work), the result is only a brief email:

A Sun X6768A dual channel 2Gb fibre card can be used in a Netra T1 105. There are some specific requirements that must be met for this to happen.

1. The earliest supported version of Solaris is Solaris 8 04/01 (we tested on Solaris 8 02/04)

2. You need to be extremely careful fitting the card (it will rest on the drive cables).

3. Not all the PCI connectors fit into the PCI slot - that is due to the slot being 32bit while the card is 32/64 bit (the card will still work fine).

4. You need to install the following three packages: SUNWsan, SUNWcfpl, SUNWcfplx. These packages can aquired from http://www.sun.com/storage/san but you should not install all of the SAN packages.

5. More detailed instructions can be found in Sun document 816-5000-14 (or later).

I sort of feel let down after that :-(

Posted by Ozguru at 06:00 AM | Comments (5)

February 18, 2005

Application

An applicant was filling out a job application. When he came to the question, "Have you ever been arrested?" he wrote, "No."

The next question, intended for people who had answered in the affirmative to the previous question, was "Why?"

The applicant answered it anyway: "Never got caught."

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (1)

February 17, 2005

Advice for single women

This post blatantly stolen from Cynical Cyn because I just couldn't resist it:


If you.......
If you want someone willing to make a fool of himself simply over the joy of seeing you ...buy a dog.
If you want someone who will eat whatever you put in front of him and never says its not quite as good as his mother made it ...buy a dog.
If you want someone always willing to go out, at any hour, for as long and wherever you want ...buy a dog.
If you want someone to scare away burglars, without a lethal weapon which terrifies you and endangers the lives of your family and all the neighbors ...buy a dog.
If you want someone who will never touch the remote, doesn't care about football, and can sit next to you and watch a romantic movie ...buy a dog.
If you want someone who is content to get up on your bed just to warm your feet and whom you can push off if he snores ...buy a dog.
If you want someone who never criticizes what you do, doesn't care if you are pretty or ugly, fat or thin, young or old, who acts as if every word you say is especially worthy of listening to, and loves you unconditionally, perpetually ...buy a dog.

But on the other hand,
If you want someone who will never come when you call,
ignores you totally when you come home,
leaves hair all over the place,
walks all over you,
runs around all night,
only comes home to eat and sleep,
and acts as if your entire existence is solely to ensure his happiness,

Then my friend . .


Buy a cat.

(Disclaimer: Any resemblance to a man is purely coincidental.)

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (2)

February 16, 2005

Noah

Noah was the first great financier.

Wisely, he floated his stock while everyone else was being liquidated.

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

February 15, 2005

Cow Problems

Ole is a farmer in Wisconsin, He is in need of a new milk cow and hears about a nice one for sale just over the border in Minnesota. He drives to Minnesota, looks at the cow, reaches under to see if she gives milk. When he grabs the teat and pulls, the cow farts.

Ole is very surprised, looks at the farmer who is selling the cow, then reaches under the cow to try again. He grabs another teat, pulls, and the cow farts again. Milk does come out, however, so after some discussion, Ole decides to buy the cow anyway and take it home.

He calls over his neighbour, Sven, and says, "Hey Sven, come and look at dis here new cow I yust bought. Pull her teat, and see vat happens." Sven reaches under, pulls the teat, and the cow farts. Sven looks at Ole and says, "You bought dis cow in Minnesota, yah?" Ole is very surprised and says, "Yah, dats right. But how did you know?" Sven says, "My vife is from Minnesota."

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (1)

February 14, 2005

Betting Advice

There's a man deeply in debt, see, and he takes the money he has left and goes to Monte Carlo to try to recoup at the roulette tables. Won a little, lost a lot, and was down to his last franc. Prayed for help.

A voice whispered in his ear: "Le rouge..." Man looked around; nobody there. What the hell -- he puts his last franc on the red, and it won.

The voice immediately said, "Encore le rouge..." Played red again, and it won again.

The voice said, "Impair..." Played odd, and it won.

Voice said, "Quinze..." so he put all the money on 15, and it won.

This went on for hours, the voice telling him what to bet, and the man putting all his money on what the voice said, and winning.

Finally when the voice spoke, the man protested that he'd won millions of dollars and wanted to quit.

The voice was inexorable: "Douze..." The man put the money on 12, and 11 came up -- he had lost everything -- the voice murmured "Merde!!"

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

February 13, 2005

Creation

Once upon a time in the Kingdom of Heaven, God was missing for six days. Eventually, Michael, the archangel found him, resting on the seventh day. He inquired of God, "Where have you been?" God sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction and proudly pointed downwards through the clouds, "Look, Michael, look what I've made".Archangel Michael looked puzzled and said, "What is it?" It's a planet," replied God, "and I've put Life on it. I'm going to call it Earth and it's going to be a great place of balance." "Balance?" inquired Michael, still confused.

God explained, pointing to different parts of earth, "For example, northern Europe will be a place of great opportunity and wealth while southern Europe is going to be poor; the Middle East over there will be a hot spot. Over there I've placed a continent of white people and over there is a continent of black people,"

God continued, pointing to different countries. "This one will be extremely hot and arid while this one will be very cold and covered in ice." The Archangel, impressed by God's work, then pointed to a large landmass and said, "What's that one?"

"Ah," said God. "That's Australia, the most glorious place on earth. There are beautiful lakes, rivers, sunsets, and rolling hills. The people from Australia are going to be modest, intelligent, and humorous and they are going to be found traveling the world. They will be extremely sociable, hardworking, and high-achieving, and they will be known throughout the world as diplomats and carriers of peace."

Michael gasped in wonder and admiration but then proclaimed, "what about balance, God? You said there would be balance!" God replied wisely, "Wait until you see the idiots I'm putting next to them in New Zealand!"

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

February 12, 2005

Oh, no you're not!

"First, I'm going to buy you a few drinks and get you a little tight," said the guy aggressively.

"Oh, no, you're not," said the girl.

"Then I'll take you to dinner at the most exclusive restaurant in town."

"Oh, no, you won't."

"Then I'll take you to my apartment and mix up a pitcher of daiquiris."

"Oh, no, you won't."

"Then I'm going to make violent, mad, passionate love to you."

"Oh, no, you're not."

"And I'm not going to take any precautions either!" said the guy.

"Oh, yes, you are!!" said the girl.

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

February 11, 2005

The price of balls

The young man-about-town enjoyed luxury but didn't always have the means to buy it, and so he huffily walked out of the Miami Beach hotel when he found out the charges for room, meals and golf privileges were $300 a day.

He registered across the street at an equally elegant hotel, where the rates were only $70. The following morning he went down to the hotel's golf course and asked Scotty, the pro, to sell him a couple of golf balls.

"Sure," said Scotty. "That'll be $25 apiece."

"What?" screamed the bachelor. "In the hotel across the street they only charge $1 a ball!"

"Naturally," replied the pro. "Over there they get you by the rooms."

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

Unmounting Filesystems

Help! I can't unmount this filesystem!

Well, the reason you can't unmount it (actually umount it - Unix spells it without an 'n') is usually because it is locked. Why is it locked? Because somewhere on that filesystem there is an open file. The questions is either which file or more likely which process. Sometimes you can look at the process table and guess but more faster and more useful is the fuser command. In particular (on Solaris):

fuser -cu filesystem-you-want-to-umount

will do the job very nicely. The 'c' means look "collectively" for everything below this point and the 'u' indicates that you want to know the "user" involved. What you will get back will be a list of process ids with the user id in brackets.

I often get asked what the 'f' stands for in fuser. Actually I am not sure but there are in fact four arguments to the command (on Solaris). They are carefully listed in the manpage in an unusual order. Instead of being alphabetic, the options are listed as:

- k (kill the processes)

- c (collect - as above)

- u (return the user id)

- f (use force)

Obviously another bit of strange Unix humour :-)

P.S. Before anyone mentions it, I am aware that the options are not the same under Linux (or indeed all versions of Solaris for that matter).

Posted by Ozguru at 06:00 AM

February 10, 2005

Family Tradition

Turning 21--- A boy from Duluth, Minnesota named Lars had heard stories of an amazing family tradition. It seem that his father, grandfather and great grandfather had all been able to walk on water on their 21st birthdays, to the boat club across the lake for their first legal drink.

So when Lars' 21st came around, he and his pal Sven took a boat out to the middle of the lake. Lars stepped out of the boat and nearly drowned. Sven managed to pull him to safety.

Furious and confused, Lars went to see his grandmother. "Grandma," he asked, "it's my 21st birthday, so why can't I walk across the lake like my father, his father, and his father before him?"

Granny looked into Lars' eyes and said, "Because your father, grandfather and great-grandfather were born in January. You were born in July.

Posted by Ozguru at 12:00 PM

February 09, 2005

Navy Custom

Not sure how it ever got started, but a tradition in the Navy is all of the pilots dance with the Wing Commander's wife.

I walked over at a dance once and asked if she'd like to dance and she said, “I don't dance with a child.”

I smiled, bowed, and replied, “Oh! I'm sorry. If I'd known your condition, I wouldn't have asked.”

Posted by Ozguru at 12:00 PM | Comments (1)

February 08, 2005

Zippy comments

One day the pilot of a Cherokee 180 was told by the tower to hold short of the active runway while a DC-8 landed. The DC-8 landed, rolled out, turned around, and taxied back past the Cherokee.

Some quick-witted comedian in the DC-8 crew got on the radio and said, "What a cute little plane. Did you make it all by yourself?"

The Cherokee pilot, not about to let the insult go by, came back with a real zinger: "I made it out of DC-8 parts. Another landing like yours and I'll have enough parts for another one."

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

February 07, 2005

Careful thinking

The drunk was floundering down the alley carrying a box with holes on the side. He bumped into a friend who asked, "What do you have in there, pal?"

"A mongoose."

"What for?"

"Well, you know how drunk I can get. When I get drunk I see snakes, and I'm scared to death of snakes. That's why I got this mongoose, for protection."

"But," the friend said, "you idiot! Those are imaginary snakes."

"That's okay," said the drunk, showing his friend the interior of the box, "So is the mongoose."

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

February 06, 2005

Polish Divorce

A Polish man moved to the USA and married an American girl. Although his English was far from perfect, they got along very well until one day he rushed into a lawyer's office and asked him if he could arrange a divorce for him - "very quick."

The lawyer said that the speed for getting a divorce would depend on the circumstances, and asked him the following questions:

LAWYER: "Have you any grounds?"

POLE: "JA, JA, acre and half and nice little home."

LAWYER: "No," I mean what is the foundation of this case?"

POLE: "It made of concrete."

LAWYER: "Does either of you have a real grudge?"

POLE: "No, we have carport, and not need one."

LAWYER: "I mean, What are your relations like?"

POLE: "All my relations still in Poland."

LAWYER: "Is there any infidelity in your marriage?"

POLE: "Ja, we have hi- fidelity stereo set and good DVD player."

LAWYER: "Does your wife beat you up?"

POLE: "No, I always up before her."

LAWYER: "Is your wife a nagger?"

POLE: "No, she white."

LAWYER: "WHY do you want this divorce?"

POLE: "She going to kill me."

LAWYER: "What makes you think that?"

POLE: "I got proof."

LAWYER: "What kind of proof?"

POLE: "She going to poison me. She buy a bottle at drugstore and put on shelf in bathroom. I can read, and it say, Polish Remover'."

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

February 05, 2005

Uncle Ed's Rule of Thumb

Never use your thumb for a rule. You'll either hit it with a hammer or get a splinter in it.

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

February 04, 2005

Say What?

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

Getting to the PROM Prompt

On a Sun server, you can get to the boot-prom by:

- holding down the STOP and A keys (modern Sun keyboard),

- holding down L1 and A (old Sun keyboard)

- pressing Ctrl-Break (dumb terminal)

You can also get there by unplugging the console and plugging it back in. Instead of seeing a 'login' prompt, the will see either:

ok

or on a really old system:

>

In both cases, if you didn't mean to get into this state, type 'go' and the system will resume where it left off (it was just sort of suspended). Note that if you leave it suspended for too long some processes will die on startup (because their connections or wait requests have expired).

Posted by Ozguru at 06:00 AM

February 03, 2005

How many?

As a senior citizen was driving down the freeway, his mobile phone rang.

Answering (using hands-free, of course!!), he heard his wife's voice urgently warning him, "Jack, I just heard on the news that there's a car going the wrong way on the Sunshine Coast freeway. Please be careful!"

"Heck," said Jack, "It's not just one car. There's hundreds of them!"

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

February 02, 2005

Flying Solo

A blonde went to a flight school insisting that she wanted to learn to fly. As all the planes were currently in use, the owner agreed to instruct her by radio on how to pilot the solo helicopter. He took her out, showed her how to start it and gave her the basics, and sent her on her way.

After she climbed 1000 feet, she radioed in. "I'm doing great! I love it! The view is so beautiful, and I'm starting to get the hang of this."

After 2000 feet, she radioed again, saying how easy it was to fly. The instructor watched her climb over 3000 feet, and was beginning to worry that she hadn't radioed in.

A few minutes later, he watched in horror as she crashed about half a mile away. He ran over and pulled her from the wreckage.

When he asked what happened, she said, "I don't know! Everything was going fine, but as I got higher, I was starting to get cold. I can barely remember anything after I turned off the big fan!"

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (1)

Old Horsetail Snake

Mr OH Snake is a regular visitor (and often leaves comments). His blog is one of the funniest you can find on the web. One recurrent theme in the posts is a desire to make money:

Lots of people commiserate with Ol' Hoss the Ancient in his single-minded pursuit of The Almighty Dollar, of which I need plenty to finance my Hoss-carryin' rocket ship to the Saggitarius Galaxy, where I will be brought back to life, Ted Williams-style. (Naturally, if I don't die I will probably donate all my money to a worthy cause, like maybe a porn site that doesn't get a lot of hits.)

Somehow that seems like a worthy cause :-)

Many of the posts also have a short "word for the day" as well. I especially liked:

My favorite word today is groper. n. loislaneism. Def.: A small dog trained to sniff your private parts.

http://www.oldhorsetailsnake.blogspot.com/

Posted by Ozguru at 03:00 AM | Comments (3)

February 01, 2005

Logic

A father in a hurry taking his 8-year-old son to school, makes a turn at a red light where it isn't allowed. "Uh-oh, I just made an illegal turn!" the man said.

"That's OK Dad," the son says, "The police car right behind us did the same thing."

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM